New data from the Early Iron Age settlement of Vynnyky-Golyanivka

Abstract

For the first time in the article, newly discovered materials from the excavations of a two-layer settlement in Vynnyky near Lviv, which were conducted in 2014–2015, are introduced into scientific use. This settlement (which was discovered by V. Zvarych in the late 1970s and at the same time surveyed by prof. M. Peleshchyshyn) is located on the southeastern part of the hilly ridge of Roztochchya (336 m above sea level). Excavations in 2014–2015 revealed three Early Iron Age objects, the first of which is a 0,7 m diameter pit; the second is a construction measuring 2,8×2,0 m and up to 0,5 m deep; and finally, the third object is a pit with a diameter of 1,4 m, which has a pear-shaped form. Several characteristic fragments of vessels from the infill of object № 1 are interesting. Special attention is paid to the fragments of the dark-glazed tableware with a wall thickness of up to 0,8 cm with a series of horizontal chamfers, which are located at the top of the neck. Samples of vessels with similar ornaments were not found during excavations in Vynnyky in previous years. The closest analogy is, perhaps, a conical handmade mug from the cremation cemetery of the Vysotska culture in the village of Konyushkiv, Brody district, Lviv region, studied by L. Krushelnytska and which is also decorated with rows of in-depth linear decoration under the rims and over the bottom. Territorially, the closest analogy to the analyzed vessel from object № 1 of Vynnyky is the large dark-glazed pot from the barrow in the village of Loivtsi, Novoushitsky district, Khmelnytskyi region (from the excavations conducted by L. Krushelnytska in 1979). This Loivtsi large pot, according to the grave goods from cremation barrow, includes a pair of iron three-rings bit shank and a pair of one-ring fishing bits, which reliably date the Loivtsi complex to the middle – third quarter of the VIII century B. C. probably can be dated back to this period. The possibility of contacts of the population of that time in the territory near today's Lviv with such rather distant regions of Western Podillia doesn`t surprise. Finally, the probability of the existence of such contacts between the population of Western Podillia and Upper Dniester regions was emphasized during the first publication of materials from the infill of construction 1 in Golyanivka Place in 2003. The authors interpret the settlement in the Golyanivka Place in Vynnyky as one of the earliest sites of the Cherepynsko-Lagodivska group but consider it to belong to the local population, which was found here by the bearers of the traditions of the Western Podillia group, which partially moved to Roztochchya. And, although the ceramic materials from Golyanivka clearly show these exclusively «eastern» impulses (reflected mainly in the profiling and ornamentation of some ceramic vessels), their presence in this settlement may represent evidence of the closest trade and exchange contacts or imitation of imported traditions of ceramics in the autochthonous local environment. And what is interesting: in Vynnyky, but – one and a half kilometers south in the Lisnychivka Place, on the edge of the first floodplain terrace of the Marunka River, a settlement and some pits with ritually reburied remains of humans – ceramic material of which, although mostly synchronous with the early phase of development of the Cherepynsko-Lagodivska group, but differs sharply from the material from Golyanivka, as it parallels almost exclusively with the Zakhidnopodilska materials of that time such as the settlement in Staryi Zbarazh in Ternopil region. Key words: Early Iron Age, Cherepynsko-Lagodivska group, Zakhidnopodilska group, Vysotska culture, chamfer, large pot, mug, lid.